Rob- Since lawyers only really listen to other lawyers, here are three ways you might get law firm lawyers to take seriously their new obligations under FRCP eDiscovery amendments: 1) reference Michael D. Gifford, Esq's analysis of Judge Judy Scheindlin's Zubulake V ruling: "Zubulake, for example, determined that the defendant had an obligation to affirmatively protect and retain all readily available, directly accessed on line data (hard drive data), as well as data relating to certain ‘key players’ located on identifiable off line back up tapes, which were otherwise overwritten on a periodic basis. To reach this point, the Court had to very carefully consider and understand the nature and capabilities of defendant’s systems; counsel can do no less and must take steps to guide the client through this process. Zubulake held that outside counsel had an obligation to consult not only with the client’s managers and ‘key players’ but also directly with its information technology staff to understand those systems and clarify the retention requirements." http://www.h2law.com/CM/BreakingLegalNews/BreakingLegalNews297.asp 2) reference Judge Judy Scheindlin's Zubulake V precedent-setting ruling and commentary in the original 3) reference Judge Judy Scheindlin's recent webinar commentary in which she explains how the new eDiscovery rules are intended to be interpreted on the legal community, and how they are likely to be interpreted : (my summary of three points Judge Judy made about counsel's particular obligations) i) rule 26(b)(2)(B) puts in-house and outside counsel on notice that: they must come to the meet-and-confer armed with intimate knowledge of the layout of their electronic information systems: all potentially relevant records must be identified as to their location and accessibility, counsel must identify what they will not search for, and counsel must have a preference for file format of production in mind. The way counsel can decide all this may be to interview their IT systems people before the meet-and-confer and before depositions are requested by opposing counsel. ii) rule 26(b)(2)(B) puts in-house and outside counsel on notice that: they are responsible for the 'litigation hold" process: they must define records subject to the hold, disseminate this information to everyone it might affect, monitor compliance. The way to go about this is to create a cross-departmental litigation response team which follows a process. iii) rule 26(b)(2)(B) : counsel must have pre-prepared justification for any claims of inaccessible records, and must provide opposing counsel with some basic data about the inaccessible records to allow opposing counsel to challenge the inadmissability claim Maureen Cusack, M.I.St. http://www.maureencusack.net "There are two kinds of adventurers; those who go truly hoping to find adventure and those who go secretly hoping they won't." -Rabindranath Tagore _________________________________________________________________ Get the latest Windows Live Messenger 8.1 Beta version. Join now. http://ideas.live.com List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance